How to prepare for Chemistry Olympiads.
Selection of materials and description of the process.

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So, the Olympiads.
According to the average score that graduates of Russian schools get on the final State Exam, as I wrote about in my last article, it is clear that biology is more difficult than chemistry.
The average score on the biology exam is lower than the average score on the chemistry exam, and lower all the time this exam has been taking place.
But biology is not a compulsory subject, it is an elective subject, and it is chosen by those who are going to go to medicine and near-medical specialties, that is the guys who are motivated.
And yet the biology USE scores are the lowest.
And so for those who are going to go to Medical Universities, from my point of view — it is more profitable to study Chemistry.
Of course, if an applicant is closer not to medicine, but to near-medical specialties, such as, for example, biophysics — it is probably better to concentrate on biology.
But in actual conditions of Moscow, when I have absolutely no free time — on March 18th a math test, a week of vacations to solve complicated problems, then only one and a half months of 4 terms, daily extra lessons at school for the Olympiad, the entrance exams to the high school 2107, the Olympiad itself — at the moment I will concentrate on the Olympiad in Chemistry of the next academic year,
the 2023-2024 season.
Ideally, I need to finish gathering materials and start preparing for the Olympiad by July 1, 2023 at the most.
Then I will have 1 month (July) to repeat Chemistry for 8th and 9th grade, and 1 month (August) to work through all the necessary problems.
Although, of course, it would have been better to start earlier.
Studying for 4 hours a day (and it’s hard to do more) — I will be able to devote only 240 hours to preparation, which is, of course, very little.
But I have to start somewhere.
What materials will I consider and what do I intend to do?
Well, first of all, I should write that there are no problems with information now.
There are excellent sites on the Olympiads, and the main one is Olympiada.ru.
There are some excellent websites directly on the Moscow Olympiads and St. Petersburg Olympiads as well as many websites dedicated to the university Olympiads.
In Moscow the school students’ Olympiad movement is developing at an unreal pace, there are specialized schools, circles, and courses.
Only the materials published at all these sites will most likely suffice for excellent preparation for the Olympiads in Chemistry.
The only trouble is that all these materials are in different places.
I want to collect all I need, with links, PDDFs and videos, on one page in order to see the whole front of work, and to make a detailed schedule of work for the summer.
At the same time, preparing these materials, I myself will better understand what exactly now can be found on the Internet to prepare for the Olympiads.
And so step one — to collect and organize information.
The second step is to find out what video tutorials are available online for school and olympiad course of chemistry.
A video lesson will not replace a good teacher, but in the conditions of independent training there is no other way out.
Perhaps you should start with the Moscow Electronic School, which apparently already has all the ideas of all Moscow teachers in all subjects. The trouble is that literally every topic there are ten lessons, and to understand which of them is good and which is not — just impossible.
So I think I will gallop through several sites with educational content, view them, and choose the material that seems to me sufficient to prepare.
I’m going to try to look at sites like:
1. The Rostelecom Lyceum
2. Foxford
3. Yaklass
4. Russian Electronic School
5. Internet Class
6. Examer
7. Stepik
8. The Center of Pedagogical Excellence
9. Yandex Tutor
10. Lecture Hall
11. Sberclass
12. Lectorium TV
13. Open Education
14. Universalium
15. Uchi.Ru
16. Educont
17. Letovo School
and, if possible, group the content available on them in tables by lesson.
Priority, of course, will be given to free courses, but if I like them, I will mention paid ones.
Well, and thirdly, to prepare for the Olympiad problems and preferably a video analysis of these problems.
What, in my opinion, is the correct process of preparation for the Olympiads?
I think, that the preparation should be conducted approximately so (I will describe a conditional 8th grade, other classes — similarly).
Firstly it is necessary to learn school course thoroughly.
1. Go through the theory by the lesson.
2. Watching video tutorial(s) on passed topics (Online services and YouTube).
3. Solving problems from the textbook (there is a problem here — often the problems in the textbook are difficult, and without a teacher it is not quite clear how to solve them).
4. Looking at solutions of difficult problems on the web or in magazines (and remember that they can be wrong!)
5. Solve problems in the above online services, ideally in those where there is a step-by-step explanation of the solution.
After finishing the year, solve problems Pass the GIA and official examples FIPI, if available.
After full assimilation of the school program for one class, we start preparing for the Olympiad.
1. Looking at the guidelines for preparing for olympiads (e.g., CPM)
2. Take Sirius courses for appropriate classes (not always available!).
3. Solve problems in entrance exams for rated schools in Moscow and the Regions:
a) Expert Ratings
b) Moscow Olympiad Ratings
c) Moscow Schools Ratings
d) Composite Ratings by Matolymp
e) Moscow Schools Unified State Examination Ratings
f) Sirius Rating
and watch video clips of entrance exams (there is, for example, at the HSE Lyceum).
If necessary, buy low-cost training courses (e.g., APO).
4. Solve problems of level 2 Olympiads and parsing them.
5. Solves problems of level 1 olympiads and parses them.
6. Solving problems of Moscow school Olympiads.
7. Watch video reviews of Olympiads
8. In high school, we add problem solving for university entrance exams.
It is clear that to make such a program even for Chemistry alone is a rather difficult and extremely time-consuming task.
Therefore, I am unlikely to be able to make a similar program in Biology and other subjects, but if someone from reading this article will decide to make a similar program for any subject, please contact me (mail at the bottom right), I will be happy to place your program on the site, indicating your authorship and links to your accounts if necessary.

The next article will be about the best schools in the regions of Russia.

Other articles on Moscow Medical Universities→
This article in Russian→